A Marvelous Work and a Wonder — Isaiah 29

A voice from the dust, a sealed book the learned cannot read, lips near and hearts far. Isaiah 29 holds the diagnosis the Lord quoted to Joseph Smith in 1820, and the cure that came out of the ground to answer it.

Ariel, the Hearth of God

“Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices” (Isaiah 29:1). The city is Jerusalem, but the name is stranger. The footnote gives the Hebrew as “Hearth of God; i.e., the temple.” So what is the charge? Add year to year, keep the feasts, kill the sacrifices. The altar fire still burns, and nothing in the verse says anyone’s heart is in it.

Hold that until verse 13, where the Lord names the disease.

First comes a siege, and then the strangest line in the chapter: “thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground … and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust” (29:4).

A Voice Low Out of the Dust

“Familiar spirit” is the Hebrew ob, a medium who claims to bring up the dead. Isaiah had no use for them: “should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?” (Isaiah 8:19). So is 29:4 approving of one? No, it is a simile — AS of one that hath a familiar spirit. The fallen city will speak low, from the ground, like a voice from the grave.

Who builds on that verse? Nephi. In 2 Nephi 26:15–16 Isaiah’s siege words come straight across, but they fall on Nephi’s own seed, “brought down low in the dust, even that they are not.” Then: “the Lord God will give unto him power, that he may whisper concerning them, even as it were out of the ground.”

That is the difference between a medium and a prophet. The medium goes looking for the dead; here the Lord GIVES the power, and the dead speak because He sends them.

The Book of Mormon writers use the image on purpose. Nephi signs off “as the voice of one crying from the dust” (2 Nephi 33:13); Moroni, “like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking out of the dust” (Moroni 10:27). The heading to the Joseph Smith Translation of Isaiah 29:1–8 says these messages will be preached from the Book of Mormon, “which came forth ‘out of the ground.’” It did.

The Hungry Man Who Dreams He Eats

Verses 7–8 are a promise to Zion. The nations that fight her will be “as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite” (Isaiah 29:7–8). They wake and find their victory was a dream.

But the picture reaches further than armies. Seeking fame, fortune, and wealth for selfish reasons is like a man who is thirsty and dreams of water, and drinks it in the dream — and when he wakes he is still thirsty. Why? Because what he drank was never water. Happiness sought only for our own fun is a dream meal. Real happiness comes from helping others, from things of value that do not perish in the night.

The man in Isaiah is not punished. He simply wakes up.

“Bring Hither the Book”

“the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered” (Isaiah 29:9–10). Prophets are not, seers are not, revelation has ceased — that is apostasy. Who closed the eyes? Nephi answers: “ye have closed your eyes, and ye have rejected the prophets” (2 Nephi 27:5). The people shut their eyes FIRST.

Isaiah 29:11–12

“And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.”

In Isaiah’s day this pictures the blindness of verse 10. Nephi saw more. In 2 Nephi 27:6–23 it is no longer a comparison but an ACTUAL book, “delivered unto a man,” who passes on “the words of the book” but not the book (27:9–10). Part is sealed “until the own due time of the Lord.” Three witnesses see it “by the power of God” (27:12). The learned are shown only “these words which are not sealed” (27:15), and the unlearned man receives “the book and the words thereof” (27:19).

2 Nephi 27:15–18 — and JS–H 1:65

Nephi  “And the learned shall say: Bring hither the book, and I will read them.”

1828  “if I would bring the plates to him he would translate them.”

Nephi  “I cannot bring the book, for it is sealed.”

1828  “I informed him that part of the plates were sealed”

Nephi  “Then shall the learned say: I cannot read it.”

1828  “He replied, ‘I cannot read a sealed book.’”

Isaiah gives the exchange one line. Nephi gives it three, and Harris’s account follows Nephi’s order.

In February 1828 Harris took characters Joseph had copied from the plates to Professor Charles Anthon in New York (Joseph Smith–History 1:62–65). By his account Anthon certified the characters, then heard that an angel had revealed the plates and tore up the certificate, “saying that there was no such thing now as ministering of angels.” Mormon had said the book would come “in a day when it shall be said that miracles are done away” (Mormon 8:26).

Is that the whole story? No. Anthon’s later statements confirm the meeting but deny that he authenticated anything; he said he only warned Harris not to invest (Church History Topics). Harris came home more convinced than when he left. The history and arguments are at The Charles Anthon Incident and I Cannot Read a Sealed Book.

What was the learned man offered? A copy of the words. What did the unlearned man receive? The book. Joseph did not read it by learning, and the Lord never asked him to: “thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee” (27:20). Isaiah tells us one thing about the man. He is not learned, and that was the point.

Lips Near, Heart Far — Heard in the Grove

Isaiah 29:13 — the parallel lines

Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth,

and with their lips do honour me,

but have removed their heart far from me,

and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

Mouth and lips stand against the heart; near against far. The last line gives the cause.

Jesus quoted it to the Pharisees: “in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:7–9). Men preach of God, but not from their hearts, and doctrine gets mixed with philosophy. Every Christian reader knows Matthew 15. Far fewer know the Lord quoted it again.

In the spring of 1820 the Father said, “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” And the Personage who answered Joseph said of those professors: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” (Joseph Smith–History 1:17–19). That is Isaiah 29:13 in the wording of Matthew 15, joined to Paul’s “form of godliness” (2 Timothy 3:5). Is that only a turn of phrase? Look at what the chapter does next. Verse 13 is the diagnosis; verse 14 is the cure, and it follows a sealed book delivered to a man who is not learned.

So one chapter holds the diagnosis spoken in the Grove in 1820, the book carried to the learned in 1828, and the marvelous work that followed when the Church was organized in April 1830 (D&C 20:1).

Most members know Isaiah 29 foretells the Book of Mormon. Fewer have noticed that the Lord opened the Restoration by quoting the SAME chapter — eight years before Martin Harris reached Anthon’s door.

Pele — the Wonder Has a Name

“Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish” (Isaiah 29:14). Two Hebrew words matter here. “I will proceed” is yosip, literally “I am adding” — the verb of Isaiah 11:11, “the Lord shall set his hand again the second time.” And “a wonder” is pele, the word in Isaiah 9:6: “his name shall be called Wonderful.”

Did Nephi see the link? He joins the two verses in one breath: “the Lord will set his hand again the second time … Wherefore, he will proceed to do a marvelous work and a wonder among the children of men” (2 Nephi 25:17). The marvelous work is the second gathering of Israel. And the Wonder at the centre of it has a name.

The phrase opened the revelations of 1829, while the translation was under way: “a marvelous work is about to come forth” (D&C 4:1), and four more that spring open with “A great and marvelous work.” Paul applied the second half of the verse to the cross: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise” (1 Corinthians 1:19). One prophecy, fulfilled more than once. Where does it land each time? On the wise who would not see.

The Deaf Shall Hear the Words of the Book

“Shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not?” (Isaiah 29:15–17). The clay is judging the potter, and then comes the reversal, and the words of the first half come back.

Isaiah 29:10–13 and 18–24 — closed, then opened

“hath closed your eyes” (10)

“the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity” (18)

“as the words of a book that is sealed” (11)

“shall the deaf hear the words of the book” (18)

“taught by the precept of men” (13)

“they that murmured shall learn doctrine” (24)

Our arrangement from the repeated words, not a published structure. Each sickness is healed, and the book is the hinge.

Nephi ends his version on that last verse, word for word: “They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine” (2 Nephi 27:35). That is where the chapter was going all along — not to the embarrassment of the learned but to the healing of those who erred.

Key References

The Unsealed Part in Your Hands

Isaiah said the learned would be handed the words and could not read them. You have been handed the book. What will you do with it? The sealed part waits for the day, the Lord told Moroni, when men “shall exercise faith in me … even as the brother of Jared did” (Ether 4:7). The unsealed part is on your shelf.

So the question of Isaiah 29 was never whether Anthon could read. It is whether we will. A man can own the book and still be the hungry man of verse 8, dreaming he has eaten. Or he can be one of those who erred in spirit and came to understanding.

The difference is whether the heart comes near along with the lips.

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